Automated Extraction of Social Determinants of Health from Electronic Health Records poster

GTRI Researchers Win Top Poster Prize at Epidemiologists' Conference

08.13.2023

Image removed.Andrew Stevens MS (pictured), Jon Duke MD,  and Richard Boyd Ph.D. secured the Outstanding Poster Presentation Award at the 2023 Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists Annual Conference.

Their winning project, “Automated Extraction of Social Determinants of Health from Electronic Health Records,” addresses the challenge of extracting crucial social determinants of health (SDoH) data from electronic health records (EHRs).

The researchers are all members of GTRI. Stevens is a Research Engineer I, Duke is a Principal Research Scientist in ICL, and Boyd is a Senior Research Scientist. All are affiliated with the Health Emerging and Advanced Technologies (HEAT) Division of GTRI's Information and Communications Laboratory (ICL).

The team developed an FHIR-based prototype that automates the extraction of SDoH information from clinical notes using ClarityNLP’s custom modules. This prototype successfully retrieved clinical notes via FHIR, processed them through ClarityNLP, and converted findings into structured codes adhering to United States Core Data for Interoperability guidelines.

The system efficiently extracted SDoH details like housing status, education, employment, primary language, and immigration status, showcasing its potential in enhancing patient and population analyses in public health. Future plans involve expanding the system to cover additional SDoH categories as defined by the Gravity Project, solidifying its impact on health care and public health initiatives.

The CSTE Annual Conference, held recently in Salt Lake City, Utah, connected more than 2,500 public health epidemiologists from across the country to meet and share their expertise in surveillance and epidemiology as well as best practices in a broad range of areas, including informatics, infectious diseases, substance use, immunizations, environmental health, occupational health, chronic disease, injury control, and maternal and child health.

Newsletter

Sign up for monthly updates on GTRI’s research, activity, and more.

Related News

| News stories
Jeffery (Jeff) Hurley, a senior research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), received the 2021 Richard M. Bass/Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Junior Teacher Award for his teaching efforts in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech.
| News stories
Gayatri Shah, a senior research engineer at Georgia Tech Research Institute's (GTRI) Project Management Support Office (PMSO), is a proven expert in the complex fields of software engineering, system engineering, software configuration, and project management. Hear her story.
| News stories
As a research engineer II at the Georgia Tech Research Institute’s (GTRI) Electronic Systems Laboratory (ELSYS), William Benjamin excels in the field of electrical engineering and is passionate about supporting those who are “overlooked” in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).